Silicon Valley Giants Collaborate With The US Government On Venezuela

Whenever you speak out on a public forum against internet censorship, like the recent Instagram/Facebook banning of Louis Farrakhan, Infowars, and several right-wing pundits, you always offend two major political groups. The first group are the power-serving authoritarians who identify with the left side of the political spectrum; they argue that it’s good and right to trust Silicon Valley plutocrats to regulate political speech on giant monopolistic platforms. The second group are the capitalism cheerleaders who believe there’s a free market solution to every problem; they argue that these Silicon Valley giants are private companies which are completely separate from the government, so it’s not accurate to refer to what they do with their own property as censorship.

Is that really true, though? Is it really accurate to claim that these sprawling corporations that nobody’s been able to compete with are simply private companies, separate and distinct from the government of the nation they’re based in? If you look at their behavior, it certainly doesn’t seem like it.

The US government is working to topple the government of Venezuela and replace it with a puppet regime. On the off chance that you were still in denial of this self-evident fact, check out this April 24th fact sheet on the website for the US embassy in Brazil which openly boasts about the way economic and diplomatic pressures are being deliberately placed on the Venezuelan government to install Washington puppet Juan Guaido to the nation’s leadership. Trump’s National Security Advisor has blatantly threatened that the US will starve the families of Venezuelan military officers if they don’t overthrow their government, right there on Twitter.

This is a known, unconcealed US government agenda. And the Silicon Valley giants are actively facilitating it.

Google lists Venezuela’s ambassador to the US as Carlos Vecchio, who has no governmental power and no authority to issue Venezuelan passports, because he represents no actual government but rather the puppet government that the US is attempting to install. Google has no reason to refer to this US government propaganda construct as “Ambassador”, but it does so anyway in support of the US government’s aggressive campaign to replace the Venezuelan government staff in the DC embassy with the staff of its imaginary puppet regime.

With Wikipedia, whose leadership allows it to serve as a narrative management operation for the US-centralized empire, it’s the same thing. Look up Juan Guaido, who has no actual political power and no authority whatsoever in Venezuela, and this is what you’ll see:

With Twitter it’s the same. During and immediately after the April 30th failed coup attempt in Venezuela the site suspended numerous Venezuelan government accounts, some permanently, and earlier this year Twitter deleted the accounts of nearly 2,000 pro-Maduro users. In 2017 we saw the same, with thousands more pro-Maduro accounts deleted. Nothing comparable has ever happened with the governments of US-allied nations.

There is no legitimate reason for these massive Silicon Valley corporations to be acting in the interests of US State Department agendas, and yet here they are doing exactly that.

Friendly reminder that in an October 2017 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, senators spoke with top legal and security officials for Facebook, Twitter and Google in a very disturbing way about the need for a Ministry of Truth to silence dissenting voices. Democratic Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii demanded that the companies adopt a “mission statement” declaring their commitment “to prevent the fomenting of discord.”

Think tank narrative manager and former FBI agent Clint Watts kicked it up even further, saying, “Civil wars don’t start with gunshots, they start with words.America’s war with itself has already begun.We all must act now on the social media battlefield to quell information rebellions that can quickly lead to violent confrontations and easily transform us into the Divided States of America.”

“Stopping the false information artillery barrage landing on social media users comes only when those outlets distributing bogus stories are silenced — silence the guns and the barrage will end,” Watts added.

In a corporatist system of government, corporate censorship is state censorship. Anyone who's fine with Silicon Valley plutocrats banning Alex Jones, Louis Farrakhan, or various Venezuelan government figures from having a voice on these giant monopolistic platforms is an idiot.

These corporations are not separate from the US government in any meaningful way, and their behavior is therefore no better than the state censorship we commonly see US government officials decrying in the governments of non-allied nations. It’s arguably worse in some ways, because at least the Chinese know their government is censoring them.

In a corporatist system of government, where there is no meaningful separation between government power and corporate power, corporate censorship is state censorship. The US Constitution protects its citizenry from government censorship, but they remain completely unprotected from the brand of corporate censorship we’re seeing today which functions in precisely the same way. Whoever controls the narrative controls the world, and they’re using corporate censorship to control the narrative.

Our world’s fundamental problem is that the people calling the shots are omnicidal sociopaths, and the only force capable of stopping them, the collective will of the public, is too thoroughly propagandized to do so. The narratives are too tightly controlled, so the people don’t rise up against the oppressors who are driving them toward extinction via climate chaos or nuclear war. We won’t make it as a species if we can’t find a way to overcome this.

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Nate/June 4, 2019

In an economic system that allows for wealth concentration, that wealth will inevitably become power. Once that happens the powerful wealthy will entrench that power to the point that the only way out is to change the economic system to one where wealth cannot concentrate. We are committing suicide by capitalism. We have to get lefty economists, anthropologists, and sociologists to innovate a new economic system that simply precludes wealth concentration. We (democrats, republicans, and independents alike) can then rally around that new system and force it into being via constitutional amendments. It’s our only hope. Banks, debt, interest, profit, rate of return must all become relics of the past if we are to create a system where everyone gets a piece of the economic pie proportional to their contribution to it, and the goods can be produced without destroying the life support systems of our only planet.

Operationally, Police forces decide on policing matters within a country, which does not mean that they are government. Operationally, official governments decide on many matters within the gangster Corporatocracy, but that doesn’t mean that corporations and the rich and powerful don’t in fact rule. The US government, then, is aiding and abetting Silicon Valley and the rest of corporate USA, and the wider capitalist world.

Blair Schirmer/May 12, 2019

“The first group are the power-serving authoritarians who identify with the left side of the political spectrum; they argue that it’s good and right to trust Silicon Valley plutocrats to regulate political speech on giant monopolistic platforms.”

That is an unfortunately characterization, Caitlin. Letting groups self-describe without demurrer and thus allowing the Overton Window to decide terms for you, allowing it to substitute mere opinion for the placement of persons and polities on the objective Western political spectrum, is a serious error.

What you’re referring to isn’t the left in any objective sense, but rather the left half of the right wing in the United States: the contemporary Democratic party and those happy to be shoved under its loathsome tent are, of course, right wing except on a handful of social issues that don’t cost the party’s donor-owners anything.

Perhaps you need to visit outlets like Counterpunch, The Real News Network out of Baltimore, the Intercept, and Jacobin and refresh your sense of what constitutes the left instead of leading your readers to believe the left is Nancy Pelosi and screechy 19 year old campus feminists. The authentic left despised Silicon Valley long before you were aware of it and what it was perpetrating.

Dimitri Kostopoulos/May 11, 2019

Excellent Article. “In a corporatist system of government, where there is no meaningful separation between government power and corporate power…..” Another example of this at the economic level, can be seen in the deep collusion between the private financiers (Wall street & Investment Megabanks) and the Government that has been happening since the US FEDERAL RESERVE BANK was established in 1913. This unholy institution IS RUN BY PRIVATE INTERESTS charging the US government and it’s people INTEREST to print money out of thin air.

Ishkabibble/May 11, 2019

Our world’s fundamental problem is that the people calling the shots are omnicidal sociopaths, and the only force capable of stopping them, the collective will of the public, is too thoroughly propagandized to do so. The narratives are too tightly controlled, so the people don’t rise up against the oppressors who are driving them toward extinction via climate chaos or nuclear war. We won’t make it as a species if we can’t find a way to overcome this. .. The problem is that people who have been raised in the present “arrangement” (Matrix, if you will) are literally not capable of describing in great detail a better arrangement. They are perfectly capable of bitching about very specific “things” that are wrong with the present arrangement — as you have done in your article– but, again, they become “tongue tied” the moment they are called upon to describe something better. People find the mere request that they do that ridiculous and repulsive. Why, “experts” should be doing that! “They” should be looking out for us. As we shouild know by now, “they” are not and “they” never will. .. The bone simple foundation stone of an arrangement that will successfully replace the present one for another thousand years is as follows. ..Do unto others what you would have them do unto you. .. If we can not PUT INTO PRACTICE that foundation stone, it is because of what we have been “taught” since Day 1 or our lives — that greed is good and that all 7+ billion people have to do when they wake up every day is get out of bed and “look out for No. 1” by literally whatever it takes and everything will turn out just fine for humanity. .. It won’t. (Do the vast majority of the members of the bewildered herd even care?) …. It’s very easy to see why the “Golden Rule” must be the foundation stone of a relationship between family members and “expanding out to” immediate neighbors. Quite obviously, it’s the one and the only solid basis of a good relationship. .. The perhaps insurmountable problem is acting on that foundation outside of that small area — for example in business relationships and even inter-national relationships. It is perhaps insurmountable because those relationships are presently based upon competition and, for lack of a better expression, “getting the upper hand” by “whatever it takes” — AKA “all options are on the table”. Putting into practice (“living”) the Golden Rule would be too disruptive. .. The microscopic percentage of the population that owns or controls the vast majority of wealth and LARGE SCALE capital equipment is going to do everything in its power to keep the present arrangement EXACTLY as it is. “All options are on the table” and that includes, for example, destroying any candidate who proposes to end the US’s vitally-necessary endless wars. .. Unless the members of the bewildered herd can elect politicians who in one way or another elucidate the Golden Rule as their fundamental political platform, the human race will cease to exist. This is because the present arrangement requires perpetual growth of the human population in order to generate profit for that microscopic Elite AND, again, in the case of the US economy, perpetual enemies and perpetual wars in order to justify the not only perpetual, but perpetually E X P A N D I N G, “defense” budget. .. Although it seems to be impossible that the mainland US could be seriously damaged by anybody else on the planet, the other nuclear powered nations of the world who are being increasingly victimized and cornered by the US are going to strike back. That is not only possible; it is inevitable should the present arrangement continue. THe US government psychopaths are bettting the existence of humanity on the belief that the US can do literally ANYTHING it wants and it will never suffer damage because it believes its victims would rather suffer subjugation than annihilation from a US counterstrike. The psychopaths are wrong. .. Again, there is only one foundation stone that can save humanity. That foundation stone is not a mere concept o idea. It is a way of life. It is a way of BEHAVING toward the other people of the world. The ultimate irony is that this most simple concept of all to understand CAN NOT AND WILL NOT BE PUT INTO PRACTICE by the majority of the members of the bewildered herd and IT IS NOT BECAUSE THEY, THE VAST MAJORITY, DO NOT UNDERSTAND THAT THAT MUST BE THE CASE. IT IS BECAUSE THEY, THE VAST MAJORITY, ARE ALSO PSYCHOPATHS. THEY TOO ARE “ALL IN” ON THE US ELITE’S DESPERATE, LAST DITCH ATTEMPT TO CONTROL THE WORLD BY SANCTIONS, THREATS OF DESTRUCTION, OR OUTRIGHT MILITARY ATTACK. THEY ARE FULLY AWARE THAT THEIR “WAY OF LIFE” DEPENDS UPON IT. THEY DON”T GIVE A DAMN HOW MANY PEOPLE THEIR GOVERNMENT HAS TO KILL TO DO IT. .. The end of the US and maybe the end of humanity will come shortly after the rest of the world realizes the future that the US has in store for them unless they act. How life on earth will evolve after humanity vacates the premises is anyone’s guess. .. That is the fate of the US’s present course of behavior toward the rest of the world. .. I’m sorry, kiddos, I really am. You have a good soul. And I hate giving good people bad news. Now, don’t worry about it. As soon as you stop reading my comment, you’ll start feeling better. You’ll remember that you don’t believe in any of this fate crap. You’re in control of your own life…………..remember? Here,………take a cookie. I promise…………by the time you’re done eating it, you’ll feel right as rain.

mike k/May 11, 2019

As it turned out, the Oracle was wrong about that cookie, and Neo was right to refuse it. Some of us are sick of things that taste good, but turn out to be poison. Our blessed discontent is what makes us more alive than the others. Thanks for the red pill Ish, it is not sweet, but it’s more to my taste for truth.

Unconditional Love is the only sustainable foundation for intelligent life to operate from. If that is too hard for us to accomplish, too bad – strike three (hundred trillion) and you are out! Just another failed attempt at cooperative intelligent life. And I agree that is really too bad – but that’s reality.

Stephen/May 11, 2019

Mark Pennington/May 11, 2019

Wikipedia supplies a platform for independent publication of articles. There is even a note at the beginning of the article you reference that states:

“This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these template messages) The neutrality of this article is disputed. (May 2019) This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia’s quality standards. The specific problem is: Material in the article does no accurately represent what is in the cited WP:RS (May 2019)”

Take a

Wikipedia does not post articles and I think does an extremely good job at vetting the content and warning readers when content is questionable. They should not be the sole source of information on any topic, but I tend to use them as one source.

Stephen/May 11, 2019

a regional “peace” activists / organizations meeting — open to the public — today had a very small turnout. a new way of mobilizing and organizing (using new technologies of the internet and new strategies of social media) is definitely needed, particularly to attract the younger generations and have a mass movement, beyond preaching to the choir or lobbying the political elite class.

Absolutely correct that Google, Amazon, FB, and Twitter are deeply committed to and entwined with both the superficial and deep state. No coincidence that their CEOs were subpoenaed to be browbeaten and threatened by the Senate just before all this censorship was unleashed.

However, you don’t help your credibility by telling lies about Guaidó. He is not some guy off the street with no legitimacy. He was duly to the National Assembly, and then elected president of the National Assembly by its other members. Sort of like a Speaker of the House or Senate President in the US or Prime Minister in the U.K.

When the National Assembly mostly supported challenges to the last election ( widely boycotted and criticized as corrupt),, Maduro dissolved the Assembly and appointed his own legislature. (Compare to Obama or Trump dissolving Congress and replacing it with appointees).

Maduro could end this at any time by calling for free and fair internationally-monitored elections and abiding by the results.

Is it none of China, Russia, or the USA’s business? Absolutely! The financial sanctions, begun under Obama, merely blocked corrupt officials from laundering embezzled money. The threat of military action is uncalled-for and evil. But: could the USA, Russia, and China sit on their thumbs while Maduro’s loyal military brutally crushes the Democratic Socialist resistance to his authoritarian dictatorship? Should they?

Stephen/May 11, 2019

Robin/May 11, 2019

Cait follow up on the designs to take over Venezuelan agriculture for Monsanto/Bayer. When the IMF required Argentina to turn its pampas of grass fed beef into soy plantations for RR GMO crops, the resulting health crisis has been exposed by courageous doctors and grieving families across the region. They made a cool billion per year with their dirty business.

There are many (but a minority) who died, and are deserving, and who are alive and deserving. We won’t destroy the liveable earth, but there will be negative consequences for those who choose to destroy the liveable earth for profit.

RC -Garrs/May 11, 2019

Americans like going to the beaches. They love to bury their heads in the sand. Later, they go jump in a pot of water, sitting on a lit stove, slowly coming to a boil while the rest of the world patiently awaits their self-inflicted demise. Too many sheeple to be a democracy. The herd is led by a pack of wolves.

Dimitri Kostopoulos/May 11, 2019

I am amazed when somebody singles out one country as the source of all evil. In today’s globalized world, most countries are KLEPTOCRACIES more or less. The world is actually ruled by an International super elite that is not only from the US but from other nations, mainly the G8 nations. Here is a cold/harsh fact as an example: All industrialized/developed nations have CENTRAL BANKS (actually private) that are unter the authority of the BIS(Bank of International Settlements – A Globalist institution) THAT IS RUN BY PRIVATE INTERESTS charging governments and it’s people INTEREST to print money out of thin air and is run partly by the CITY OF LONDON (The North korea, Iran, Venezuela are a few that are not part of that – can you start connecting the dots now?). Here’s a list of all members of the BIS:https://www.bis.org/about/member_cb.htm Most people in the world are actually enslaved and they don’t even know it…..

Dimitri Kostopoulos/May 11, 2019

Robyn/May 11, 2019

I have been confused for some time over what ‘left’ means in today’s political scheme. To me, left used to mean anti-war, strong trade unions, universal health cover, free education, government ownership of essential services (eg water, public transport), subsidised housing for low-income or unable-to-work people etc. But Caitlin writes of ‘power-serving authoritarians who identify with the left side of the political spectrum’. Can somebody please name some of these power-serving authoritarian lefties. I have followed politics closely for several decades but this ‘liberal’ and ‘left’ labelling has me totally unable to follow what’s going on.

Stephen/May 11, 2019

Stephen B/May 11, 2019

Both advocate for most of the causes (Robyn mentioned, except anti-war) people care about but from the elitist point of view: people are too dumb to know what’s good for them, so we the rich and smart will have to rule them for their own interest.

It was nice to see Benjamin Medea not back down when she disagreed with Peter Lavelle over the subject of who to call Left. It’s bad enough when bloggers or writers are just lazy and call the Left on the establishment political spectrum Left, without qualification. But Lavelle demonstrates how it can be more serious than just being lazy. He didn’t come back, in their back and forth, with ‘No, That’s not the real Left but just the Left within the rightwing establishment’. He just continued to insist that pro Democratic Party figures (Medea’s concession) were Left.

LSJohn/May 11, 2019

“Is it really accurate to claim that these sprawling corporations that nobody’s been able to compete with are simply private companies, separate and distinct from the government of the nation they’re based in?” Kinda, but they are chosen by the same group of morons who choose our “representatives.” IMO Facebook users are people who would need to be told, “If you drop the soap while taking a community shower in prison, don’t pick it up,” and “Rules made by rulers probably won’t save us from the rulers.”

Tom Welsh/May 11, 2019

“Whoever controls the narrative controls the world…”

Something of an exaggeration. The Nazis pretty thoroughly controlled all narratives within Europe in 1941 – yet they didn’t control the world, as they were to find out when they ran into the iron fist of the Red Army a few months later.

Narrative control certainly is most important; it may confer control over the population that accepst the narrative, but not over the objective world or over people who reject the narrative.

Tom Welsh/May 11, 2019

“Is it really accurate to claim that these sprawling corporations that nobody’s been able to compete with are simply private companies, separate and distinct from the government of the nation they’re based in?”

Apparently not – mainly because those companies are either monopolies or near-monopolies. Which, by the way, are not supposed to exist in free market economies. It is supposed to be the government’s job to create and enforce anti-trust laws that prevent any corporation from becoming too powerful and thus escaping the discipline of competition.

Why do governments allow monopolies and near-monopolies to develop? Obviously because it suits them. In 1999 Microsoft had already been found guilty of actual crimes, and was awaiting a decision whether it was to be broken up, or just to have to publish the source code to Windows, Office and its other products.

Then George W. Bush was elected President, and Microsoft got off with a slap on the wrist. It was warned “don’t do it again” – which, since “it” was defined as driving Netscape out of business, and Netscape no longer existed because Microsoft had driven it out of business, was trivially easy.

Any competent economist or student of business will tell you that the average capitalist entrepreneur hates competition like the gates of Hell. They go to almost any lengths to drive all competitors out of business and gain a monopoly – because then they can charge whatever they like.

That suits government too, because big business is an easy target for regulation. Microsoft cannot escape the law – it has too much invested, and can’t flit to Romania or Paraguay overnight. Microsoft has to obey government or suffer the consequences, so the government can use it as a subsidiary department.

The only people who suffer from monopolies, of course, are we the consumers.

Edward/May 11, 2019

Before this the phone companies were cooperating with the Total Information Awareness program. A phone company whistleblower from San Fransisco has stated he was ordered to set up equipment so the government could record the calls passing through the hub there. New computers or cars have bugging or tracking hardware installed. A pentagon psychological warfare expert used to (still is?) work at CNN shaping the news. CIA operatives will “retire” and set up CIA operations in private companies.

Lawrence Jay Shirley/May 11, 2019

The CIA has operatives (not employees) in every major News Agency throughout the world. George Soros and the EU have a similar, but not as extensive, network. Every day, the News Agencies are told by these two overloads: 1) What is News and what is not News. 2) What to say regarding certain key issues (for example: “a manufactured crisis” was a specific term they wanted to see in use to describe the crisis at the southern US Border. Jon Stewart used to make fun of how the News used to puppet the stories they were told to emphasis on his show for years). From a News perspective, there has been no good that has ever come from this “overloading” process. From a governing perspective, there has been some good from this process, but it is not cost effective. The US would drop this down to a more reasonable level were it not for the EU/Soros control system which competes with the US system.

Kate Wilson/May 11, 2019

This is by far the most chilling article of yours that I have read. Thank you for your courage and your brilliant analysis. If the masses start to wake up in numbers sufficient to challenge the power of the sociopaths… what means do we have left to spread the word? And why does this powerful group want to destroy us all?

Pap-a-lap/May 11, 2019

Of course! The online audience is the biggest one there is, including huge numbers that don’t pay much attention to mainstream media. For societal indoctrinaton to thoroughly succeed, for the keystone to be set into place, this audience must be captured! That is, defended. Advantage – money.

Katy/May 11, 2019

RC - Garrs/May 11, 2019

“ … one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” Is an oxymoron and is but one reason the US is a divided country. Printing – ‘In God We Trust’ on the USD doesn’t help either. It can’t possibly be a Christian Nation … Oh wait … maybe it IS!

don/May 11, 2019

Excellent insight Caitlin, as always…. your dedication to telling the truth is awesome. Much praise and strength to you (and your husband) for the commitment and to the vulnerable place you are in. You have fans- thousands!

It’s terribly tempting to want to feed the hungry proletariat the meal they desire. But each of those comics you mention have all made me laugh hard. Much of late night comedy now sadly is remarkably interchangeable. Don’t despair https://t.co/MePoHPzcJq

@RobSchneider This is exactly why I reserve a special hatred for comedians like Bill Maher, Steve Colbert, Samantha Bee and Trevor Noah who sell their talent to the churning out of propaganda for establishment power structures. https://t.co/vTVPNe3kU8

Excerpt from "Mainstream 'Centrists' Pose The Greatest Ideological Threat To Us All":

People like Ashton Kutcher imagine that the so-called “center” is called that because it sits smack dab in the middle of the ideological spectrum between communism and fascism, right in that moderate sweet spot that respects capitalism and private ownership without flying off the deep end into Nazi-like tyranny. In reality, the status quo exists entirely outside any left-right paradigm. It’s neither “left” nor “right” to give total control of the western world to an alliance of plutocrats and opaque government agencies who seek to expand their power and wealth by destroying our ecosystem, waging endless wars, and gradually shoring up more and more control of their citizenry via internet censorship, surveillance and police militarization. It’s just crazy.

I’m picking on Ashton not because he occupies some special place in all this, but because he doesn’t. He’s just an illustration of how blind people have become to the real threat that’s right in front of them, and how normalized insanity has become.

People who identify as “left” see the ruling power establishment as right-wing, people who identify as “right” see the ruling power establishment as left-wing, and people who identify as “center” see themselves as moderates whose normal, healthy way of life is under threat by the “far right” and “far left”. But really all that’s happening is a few assholes fucking over everyone else, which is no more “left” or “right” than a terrorist attack. The left versus right argument doesn’t even make sense until this far more pressing issue has been resolved. A Bernie supporter and a Trump supporter are arguing about left versus right while trapped in a room with a tiger who’s eating them both alive.